Increasingly, we depend on internet access to run our lives, and when we have guests over to our house, apartment, or workplace, normally we either have to open our wireless network or give the guest our network password. Either way, you open up your wireless network to security risks.

No worries--we’ll show you how to easily setup your own guest network using either an AirPort Extreme (early 2009 model) or another brand of router (we’ll use a Netgear). On newer routers that have two antennas and therefore support dual bands, the tools needed to create a guest network usually already exist in the provided software. However, you’ll need to check your particular router to see if this type of functionality is provided.

AirPort Extreme Base Station

1. Get Manual

Clicking Manual Setup lets you manually manage your AirPort Extreme.

On your Mac, navigate to and open the AirPort Utility, an application used to manage your base station, found in /Applications/Utilities. Click the Manual Setup button and enter your management password.

2. Roll Out the Welcome Mat

Want to let your guests' Macs talk to each other? It's more social that way.

Click the AirPort tab, and then the Guest Network tab. In this area, you’ll be able to configure your AirPort for guest access. Check the Enable Guest Network checkbox and type in an identifiable name for your guest network. Computers connecting to it will not have any access to your personal network and won’t be able to communicate with each other. However, if you check the box that says “Allow guest network clients to communicate with each other,” guests will be able to exchange files with and otherwise connect to one another.

3. Secure It

When encrypting your wireless network, we recommend using WPA encryption, because it’s more secure and less vulnerable to attacks.

In the Guest Network Security dropdown, you can select between different types of encryption. When you do this, you will be able to enter a password for your guest network. Don’t use the same password as you do for your main network, obviously, or this whole exercise will have been pointless.

4. Start It Up

After a short restart, guests will be able to connect to the wireless network that you just created.

Once you’ve entered all of the required fields, you can click Update. After your AirPort Extreme restarts, you should see an additional wireless network appear with the name you specified in Step 2. Guests can now log in to that network using the password you chose in Step 3 and access the internet. Again, guests won’t have access to your personal network and shared resources (network printers, disks, and so on).

The article and comments have been dropping hints, but so far nobody has come out and said that the Time Capsule supports guest networks. I will say that it definitely supports guest networking, provided that it's one of the newer models with dual networks. An Apple tech note specifically discusses guest networking on the "early 2009" airport extreme and time capsule:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3477John FNew York, NY

My G5 iMac has a WiFi network setup with a password. Anyone with an iPod touch can connect to it no problem. However I've never been able to get a Windows laptop to connect. Would setting up a guest account fix this?

To answer your question directly, the Time Capsule is no better or worse than the Airport Extreme Base Station. The Time Capsule is essentially an Airport Extreme Base Station with a hard drive for wireless backup built-in. Apple tends to upgrade their hardware and software on a regular basis, therefore depending on when you purchased your Time Capsule, it may not have dual-band capability.

I have a WGT624v3 Netgear, and I am not seeing any options for guest networks. Can you elaborate more on the version of this device. I am using the firmware from April, 2008 which seems to be the latest and greatest for the 624v3.